


Chicken Soup and Calzones

by VermeilH20



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Banter, F/M, Fluffy, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Romance, Sick Fic, fluu, kind of, pre-dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VermeilH20/pseuds/VermeilH20
Summary: Ben gets sick before a big meeting. Leslie is there for him, both before and after. Even if it means maybe-breaking Chris's no-dating rule and also being forced to confront some of her less-than-platonic feelings.(I geeked out so hard while writing this. There is an entire chunk of their banter which is just me going buckwild about Jane Austen).
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58





	Chicken Soup and Calzones

This was an utter travesty. Leslie stared at the disaster that was Ben Wyatt’s hair. From behind him, she got a clear view of his skewed part and the tufts sticking out that made his normally neat coiffure look like some kind of distressed tumbleweed.

Disaster might be pushing it a little, though. It wasn’t unsalvageable. But it was certainly not something he could go on stage with. More accurately, it was certainly not something she was going to let him get on stage with.

“Hey, Wyatt.” The easiest way to create emotional distance is to dehumanize an individual through the use of formalities, such as last names. Ron had said that, once. Leslie had never dreamed she would be taking relationship advice from Ron, but the man had two failed marriages and what was possibly a salacious string of heartbreaks in his past. When it came to killing romances, there was no one better.

Well, except maybe Tom, but Leslie wasn’t about to dunk herself in that weird cologne brand he used, even if that stuff was certified people-repellent. She still had professional standards to maintain. Also, she was pretty sure it was banned in the European Union for making rabbits go blind.

“Heyyyy. Wyatt. I’m talking to you!” She stared, stymied, as he kept walking. Ben was many things, but rudely dismissive was not one of them. This wasn’t like him. “Ben!” She reached out and tapped his shoulder.

“Hi – wow, you don’t look good. At all.” Leslie took in the very sick-looking form of Ben Wyatt that turned to look at her. He had bags under disturbingly reddened eyes and there was sweat gathering at the corner of his temple. 

“Huh? Oh, I’m fine.” He immediately sneezed three times into his sleeve. Then he started coughing. “Damn it, the cough drop must have worn off.” He patted his pant pockets before triumphantly pulling out a Halls. Nearly a dozen wrappers fell out onto the floor. 

Leslie looked at the husks of cough drops past that were now covering the hall carpet like waxy confetti. “Are you sure you can deliver the budget presentation? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine.” Ben coughed again and the half-unwrapped cough drop fell from his hands. He stared at the floor morosely. “That was the last one.”

“Well, I can run back to your office. Get you a new one before the meeting.” She offered. 

“No, Leslie. That was the last one. I went through the whole bag today.”

That did it. “Okaaaay. You are not okay. Maybe you should sit down.” She led him over to a bench in the hall. 

He slumped down in relief, but still mustered enough strength to respond. “You delivered a full event proposal while running a critical-level fever. I can handle going over a bunch of numbers that no one is going to be paying attention to anyway.”

“That’s not true! I listen to everything, especially the budget numbers!” Leslie protested. “So at least one person is going to be paying attention to you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she began to mentally kick herself. This was not dehumanizing or distancing him. This was very much sympathizing and consoling him.

This was not good.

Ben didn’t appear to notice, as his eyes scrunched up and he sneezed again. His hair got progressively messier each time he bent over. “Maybe I should have taken Tom up on that offer of hair gel. The stuff smells terrible but at least his hair is never out of place.”

“I’m pretty sure that stuff is construction-grade. Gale-force winds couldn’t make it budge.” Leslie sniped under her breath,

Ben laughed, only to start coughing again. “I’m fine. The doctor said I’m fine.”

Leslie wondered which doctor had seen the clearly ill man before her and decided to give him a clean bill of health. She wasn’t going to stand for this. “You need to go home and have a nap. Maybe a warm cup of tea.”

“I would agree with you, but someone needs to present this budget and despite your many talents, you haven’t seen these numbers before. Even you couldn’t manage to look at the shorthand figures here and figure out what they represent in the seven minutes we have before the meeting. Unless you have some superpowers you haven’t told me about.” He grinned, a little wearily.

But it was still enough to make Leslie’s heart skip a beat. He was so adorably dorky. Why did Chris have to have that stupid rule?

Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou a coworker?

“You’re right.” Leslie looked him up and down. “Okay, I’ll let you go into that meeting on one condition. You go home straight after.”

“But…”

“No buts,” Great, now she was thinking about his butt. Leslie told herself to focus. “Meeting, then home. I’m sure Chris can give you one day off. In fact,” She gave him an evil smile. “I’m sure if I told him how disgustingly sneezy you are, he would insist on sending you home. And probably waste hours of his precious time thoroughly disinfecting the offices and halls.”

Ben narrowed his eyes at her. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, Wyatt.” There, back to dehumanizing. Leslie ignored the small part of her brain that was reminding her how this tactic was used by the Nazis to make killing easier during the Holocaust. “Speaking of which, why hasn’t Chris sent you home?”

Ben looked guilty. “I may have been avoiding him today for that very reason.”

Leslie was not going to lie. It was a huge turn-on how dedicated he was to his job. Like attracts like, after all.

“Bygones. Promise me you’ll go home after this?”

“I promise.” Ben replied, “Now, if it isn’t too much trouble, could you please help me get up? Sitting down feels very good right now and I don’t think I can stand again without someone pulling me to my feet.”

Leslie wordlessly helped him up. He thanked her and turned towards the conference room.

“Wait!”

“Huh?” Ben turned around to look at her.

“You can’t go in looking like that!” Leslie waved her hands to gesture at her hair. “Let me fix it.” She pulled out a comb from the inner pockets she had tailored into her blazer. All of her suit jackets and blazers had them. They made life so much easier.

“Thanks.” Ben leant down so she could reach his head. To any innocent bystander, it would look like he was leaning down for a kiss.

The thought made Leslie’s heart skip a beat. She busied herself with fixing his hair, trying her best to ignore how nice and soft it felt. In a few seconds had him looking perfectly politically presentable.

“Break a leg!” She grinned as the two of them headed for the meeting. They made it right on time.

_A few hours later…_

Was it or was it not a bad idea to show up at a coworker’s apartment in the evening with a bagful of calzones and soup?

She should have probably asked herself that question a long time ago. Like this afternoon. Now, as she stood on the front porch of Ben Wyatt’s house with a bag of takeout and her hand hovering over the doorbell, Leslie was seized by a last minute series of doubts.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was anyone else. If it was Andy or April or Ann or Tom or even Ron. She knew them all like the back of her hand. They were either friends or coworkers or both. Nothing less, nothing sappy, nothing to worry about getting fired over.

Ben, on the other hand, fell into that nebulous gray territory of person-with-possibly-requited-mushy-feelings-who-was-also-a-coworker. The last person to occupy that category was one Mark Bran-dick-awicz (which was how April had referred to him in an internal memo that she’d “accidentally” cc’d Leslie on). That debacle had not ended well, and Leslie really didn’t want Ben to become the subject of shady internal memos. The poor man had gotten enough of that during the media blitz. He didn’t deserve April’s wrath, too.

Sure, he was annoying. Really, really annoying. But in the rare moments when he was not, he was a genuinely good person. Leslie looked at the bag in her hand and wrinkled her nose a little. Sure, he was a bit misguided about the merits of certain foodstuffs, but it hardly impinged on his overall sincerity. He’d also come through for her many more times than she cared to admit.

Leslie looked at the doorbell and steeled herself. Well, she was here, and if she left, it meant wasting perfectly good food. And Leslie Knope hated food waste, though not enough to sully her mouth with godless abominations like calzones.

Before she could second-guess herself any further, she quickly rang the doorbell. She stepped back and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself before Ben came to the door. Deeeeeep breathes. Deeeeeep…

Damn, the calzones actually smelled pretty good. Or maybe it was just her nerves making her experience olfactory hallucinations. Ann had said people experienced all kinds of weird things under severe stress.

Yeah, it was probably the nerves.

Leslie was not a good cook, at least, not when it came to such fancy things as soup. Apparently, making soup was a lot more complicated than just tossing some stuff into a pot of boiling water and hoping for the best. She had always been more of a sandwich person, herself. But soup was good for colds, and he had made some for her when she was sick and so now she had been determined to get him some.

The calzones had been even trickier, but what was the point of having binders full of fun friendship facts if you didn’t use those facts to make said friends happy? 

She had driven all the way to Indianapolis to get a box of chocolates from that gourmet chocolatier Ann had mentioned exactly once in passing conversation when her best friend had an especially bad period and breakup happen in the same week. She’d managed to furtively get all of Andy’s measurements to take him suit shopping before that big interview. Hell, she had even figured out Ron’s address (Though the payoff from that was still a few months down the line. His not-birthday-party was going to be amazing. It had been hard to figure out how to get that much bacon shipped across state lines, but nothing was impossible if you put your mind to it).

And that was all just this past month.

Some people would call her overly-involved, nosy, a bit of a busybody. And those people would be absolutely right. But Leslie saw nothing wrong with caring deeply about her friends and showing them how much she cared.

So there was nothing untoward or uncharacteristic about her driving three towns over to find a restaurant that sold freshly-made calzones. Nothing that would break Chris’s rule about workplace relationships and make him get that vaguely-pained expression that was the closest the unbelievably chipper man ever came to frowning. 

Also, said calzone place had gotten excellent Yelp reviews on its chicken soup. It was like killing one bird and one pizza with the same stone!

_Rationalize it all you want._ The argumentative little voice in the back of her head saw through all her arguments and headed gleefully for the jugular. _You liiiiiike him! You want to kissssss him!_ It paused, considering something. _Well, when he’s not sick, anyway._

__

__

Sometimes, the same things that made you an excellent politician and debater also made it very, very hard to lie to yourself about your feelings. 

She was so lost in thought that she almost screamed when the door opened and a haggard figure with bloodshot eyes peered out at her.

“Hi – wow. You startled me.” Leslie noticed that his pajama pants had little superhero logos on them. That was cute, even if she didn’t recognize most of them. She then realized that staring too long at his pants might give him the wrong idea and snapped her head back up to give him a beaming smile.

He blinked at her a little blearily. “Leslie? What are you doing here?” He looked confused, but she couldn’t tell whether it was from his headache or his shock at finding her on his doorstep.

“Surprise! I brought you something!” She held up the take-out bag triumphantly. “It’s calzones and chicken soup!”

Ben looked slightly lost for words, but he broke into a smile when he noticed the logo on the bag. “I love that place!” The way his face lit up did funny things to her stomach. “It’s, like, three towns away, though?”

“I had some free time.”

“Your really didn’t have to.”

“But I wanted to. This is what friends do, right?”

Ben gave her an adorable lopsided smile that meant he was both sincerely touched and slightly embarrassed. “Yup. Friends.” His eyes went wide and he sneezed into his elbow. “Sorry, I’m a little off.” His face went completely still, the way it did when he was trying to remember something. Or when he was feeling tired. The poor man looked like he was about to fall over from exhaustion.

Leslie was pretty sure carrying him back to his bed would violate all of Chris’s policies. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. “I’m just going to put these down in your kitchen. Or you can do it yourself. Whatever makes you feel better.”

Ben looked up, seeming to remember what he had been trying to recall. “Won’t Chris…”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Leslie shrugged. “Besides, this is super platonic! I visit all my friends with care packages when they are stuck sick at home. Everyone needs cheering up when they are puking their guts out.”

“Yeah, Ann told me about that. She said you have binders that could, and I quote, “give the FBI a run for their money’.” He paused. “Also, I’m not puking my guts out. I’m just a little woozy, but that’s mostly because of the cough syrup.”

“Well, I don’t think the FBI would know or care what you or Ann’s favorite colors and seasons and season of Game of Thrones are.” Leslie said, a little put out by the comparison.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s kind of cute.” He blushed and backtracked hastily. “Whoops. That was definitely not platonic.”

“I mean, it could be.” She noticed that he didn’t apologize for saying it, and that made her heart flutter a bit. 

He squinted out at where the sun was beginning to set. “I mean, I guess it isn’t too strange for you to check up on me after being the one to suggest I go home. Do you want to come inside?” He laughed a little self-consciously. “Oh, wait, you already suggested that.”

“No.” Leslie refused quickly, even though her insides were screaming at her to say yes. “I think the threshold is the marker of propriety.” She gestured at the inside of his house, then back to the porch. “As long as I stay on this side of it, I am pretty sure no one can accuse us of anything.”

“Good thinking. Wouldn’t want to be accused of impropriety.” Ben replied in a nasal tone.

“That is such a bad British accent.” Leslie laughed. “Where did you even learn that?”

“From Pride and Prejudice, actually. It sounds a lot more convincing when I’m not congested.”

Leslie nearly died on the spot. “You’re a Jane Austen fan?” Her voice was so high-pitched she was pretty sure only dogs could have heard her. 

“I’ve read all the books. Well, most of the books.” He shrugged modestly. “Thought I should balance out all the rampant toxic masculinity in the post-Miller Batman comics.”

 _Kisshimkisshimkisshimkisshimkisshim…he’s sick. You can’t get sick during a working week!_ “How very forward thinking of you.” She said, struggling to maintain a normal tone.

“I was kidding. I actually really like her books. They are great social satires.” He admitted. “I read them after I saw Clueless. And then I had to see all the other movies. You know, to see if they did justice to the books.”

Leslie was going to have to leave soon, or she was going to end up going from mild attraction to a full-blown crush. Which was not at all the direction this relationship was supposed to take.

“As much as I’d like to keep talking about nineties film adaptations of English literature, I need to head home.” She announced very abruptly. She then realized she was still holding the bag and handed it to him. “I’m busy. I have a lot of work to do.”

“I figured. Thanks again for this. It means a lot.” They both studiously avoided eye contact as custody of the bag was transferred. They both held their breath a little when their fingers touched in the process.

Leslie shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “No problem! It’s what friends do.” She gave him another big smile and waved goodbye. He gave her that lopsided smile again and waved back with his free hand.

It was only when she had gotten into her car and was halfway home that Leslie admitted to herself that she had been feeling very non-platonic feelings for most of their conversation.

Which wasn’t a bad thing in and of itself. What was worrying was how feeling those feelings made her feel. They made her feel good.

Leslie Knope was officially crushing. Hard.


End file.
